WeRide Corp. v. Huang

4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 SAN JOSE DIVISION WERIDE CORP., et al., 8 Case No. 5:18-cv-07233-EJD Plaintiffs, 9 ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR v. RELIEF FROM NON-DISPOSITIVE 10 PRETRIAL ORDER KUN HUANG, et al., 11 Re: Dkt. No. 281 Defendants.

13 Defendants ZZX and AllRide move for relief from Magistrate Judge Cousins’s non- dispositive, pretrial Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Discovery Responses (the “Order”). Dkt. No. 252. The court has reviewed ZZX and AllRide’s motion, the Order, and the briefing underlying the Order. The court denies the motion.

17 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) provides that a party may file a motion for relief from a magistrate judge’s non-dispositive order and that the district judge must modify or set aside any part of the magistrate judge’s order that is clearly erroneous or is contrary to law. “When reviewing discovery disputes, however, the Magistrate is afforded broad discretion, which will be overruled only if abused.” Columbia Pictures, Inc. v. Bunnell, 245 F.R.D. 443, 446 (C.D. Cal. 2007) (collecting cases).

23 During the parties’ discovery disputes before Magistrate Judge Cousins, ZZX and AllRide raised a general objection to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests to the extent those requests implicated Chinese law. Now, they contend that Magistrate Judge Cousins erred in overruling that general objection because they have not withheld any documents based on the objection. So, they argue, the issue was not ripe. Magistrate Judge Cousins, though, found that “[a]lthough [Plaintiffs’] ] document requests have been outstanding for months, ZZX and AllRide have not identified any || specific documents that they claim are subject to Chinese law, nor have they presented any ‘expert || testimony or other authority’ to support such an objection.” Order at 8. Thus, the Order is based || on sound reasoning and the parties’ conduct in discovery. As such, it was not an abuse of discretion to overrule ZZX and AllRide’s general objection. See Hawkins v. Kroger Co., 2019 || WL 4416132, at *9 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 16, 2019) 7 ZZX and AllRide next argue that Magistrate Judge Cousins erred by not sufficiently considering the Aerospatiale factors. However, ZZX and AllRide never raised the factors in their || briefing before the Magistrate Judge, despite Plaintiffs twice raising them. See Dkt. Nos. 149, 10 157. Even assuming their characterization of the Order is correct, ZZX and AllRide cannot refuse 11 to engage an issue before the Magistrate Judge and then complain that the Magistrate Judge did || not sufficiently consider the issue.

13 Accordingly, ZZX and AllRide’s motion for relief from non-dispositive pretrial order is || denied.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

16 || Dated: September 18, 2019 18 United States District Judge || Case No.: 5:18-cv-07233-EJD ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR RELIEF FROM NONDISPOSITIVE PRETRIAL ORDER